OIS Honored Elder with festival many years

“I really never thought in the beginning that Oklahoma Indian Summer would turn into such a big event,” he says. “I love that OIS brings so many people together from the surrounding communities.”

This year’s festival, scheduled for Sept. 12-15, will be held at the Bartlesville Community Center, located at the corner of Cherokee Avenue and Adams Boulevard in Bartlesville.

The state’s largest intertribal event and cultural exchange features a powwow with both competitive and non-competitive dancing on Friday and Saturday and a juried Native American and Western Art Show and Market, showcasing the talents of more than 30 artists.

A member of the Osage Tribe and also of Cherokee heritage, Theis has been with the festival “almost from the beginning.” In that time he has served as senior vice chairman and also as the chairman of the festival in 1995. He currently serves on the OIS Executive Board of Directors.

“I was delighted when the board chose Raymond as Oklahoma Indian Summer’s Honorary Elder,” says OIS Festival Director Jenifer Pechonick. “I have looked up to him since I was a small child. He has been a kind and personable friend to Oklahoma Indian Summer and the Native community for many years.”

Both Theis and his wife Dolores (who was OIS honorary elder in 2010) have served on boards and committees for the festival for 23-years.

“It is with humility and such honor to be asked to be the Honored Elder for the 2013 Oklahoma Indian Summer Festival,” Theis says. “I wish to thank the members of the board of directors for bestowing this position of Honored Elder for this years festival.”

Having grown up on the Osage Indian Reservation, Theis was always very aware of the Indian culture that surrounded him. His mother was an original allottee of the Osage Tribe, and he later served on the First Osage National Council in 1994.

Finishing high school in Canon City, Colo., in 1948, he went on to Oklahoma A & M before going to Officer Candidate School in Ft. Benning, Ga. For a time he trained recruits before going to flight school and serving 18 months on the front lines as pilot with the 7th Infantry Division Aviation Company.

After returning home in 1955, Theis went to work for Phillips Petroleum Company in the Research and Development Department. Retiring after 30 years, he focused in ranching and raising Hereford cattle in Osage County.

He says that he’s very proud to have been a part of a pair of cultural exchanges that saw the Osage going abroad as well as hosting groups from overseas.

The first included a group of Osages going to France as well as hosting a group. The trips, which were inspired by three Osage Indians who were welcomed there in 1830, later to return to the Osage Reservation, would eventually become the Oklahoma-Occitania Association.

Theis also helped establish a cultural exchange that saw Japanese exchange students from a university visit the Osage Reservation to study and learn of the Osage culture.

“The students attended an Operation Eagle Pow-Wow and danced with Operation Eagle students,” he says.

“They said that the ‘beat of the drum’ made them feel such a heartwarming feeling, and they felt a part of the Indian dance. Having lived in the city of Tokyo all their lives they had never seen a sunrise or a sunset. This was a miracle that they took back with them to their native country.”